The subject of this paper is a black twelfth grade experimental class in the Problems of American Democracy conducted in the fall of the 1969 school year. They were concerned with studying the local black community in its past and present forms from a cross-cultural anthropological point of view. A conceptual scheme of natural history involved the student as an active participant in the learning process. Another pedagogical assumption was that all knowledge is tentative with the subject matter treated as data and as people's perceptions of the world. The students performed as anthropological field workers with the central foci of the learning activities on collection (observing, interviewing, and recording), organization, classification, and the analysis of data on: family, housing and household activities, male and female roles, food traditions, religion, folk traditions, and the economic systems of farming, money, and goods. Data was presented about other cultures to encourage students to analyze differences in values, behavior patterns, and social groupings. Important subsidiary class activities were: 1) discussion of books read, and student report presentations; 2) lecture; and, 3) class discussions on current topics such as drugs, contraception, black pride, and the anti-war movement. The processes and perspectives can be adapted to any grade level and are applicable in a wide variety of subject fields. (SBE)